Chicago Fire “Retaliation Hit” 

Wow, what a mess at Firehouse 51!  Just think of every workplace-related snaffoo that could possibly happen, and chances are, it was in last night’s episode.  And, the bad thing is that none of it may be resolved anytime soon.

The first, and biggest, brown mess is the one created by Severide (Taylor Kinney) when he had what he thought was an innocent drink with Tara.  Never would he have guessed that she was the biggest fruit loop that ever came down the pike.  Her accusation is that Severide pushed her against the wall and sexually-assaulted her. There’s absolutely no evidence of that, but after looking into Severide’s background, they did find a subordinate that he had a fling with and one that ended badly.  Bottom line is that IA now has a pattern, and they could care less that there is no evidence.  For those that are wondering, yes, folks, this is how it works in the real world.  A girl calls “rape”, and you’d better get a lawyer and be prepared.  The only part of the entire situation that I didn’t understand is why in the hell was there no investigation into Tara’s background? I mean, come on!  This Tara girl is coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs, and I don’t think she suddenly became that way overnight.  Make no mistake, she has done this before – they just need to find it.  Investigate things like the time she spent in college, and I can virtually guarantee you there’s fling with a married professor, stalking incidents, and all other kinds of batsh*t crazy stuff.  They just need to find it, and then, finally, Severide may have a chance of getting out of this.

Next comes the Voight (Jason Beghe) situation, and again, unfortunately, this is how things work in the real world.  In this day and age, money talks, and in this instance, it was enough to get Voight out of jail.  Then, the little “favor” that Dawson owed him was enough to get him reinstated at CPD, and not only that promoted to Director of the Intelligence Unit!  Wow!  The end of the episode where Voight crashes the opening party at Molly’s is absolutely perfect.  The air of confidence in his step as he walked into the bar showed everyone at Firehouse 51 that he’s won.  And, that big roll of 100s that he pulled out showed that he had the power.  I don’t think anything will be the same going forward now.

The final workplace incident that happened in this episode did actually turn out in the good guy’s favor, and that was the dog food gag that Hadley played on Mills (Charlie Barnett).  Folks, it’s one thing to substitute the sugar with salt and have a good laugh, but it’s another thing to actually put dog food on someone’s meal.  That is just wrong!  Hadley was on his high horse and couldn’t see what the big deal was.  Well, Boden (Eamonn Walker) did the right thing, saw him down on his ass, and then, gave him the boot.  Good for you, Boden!  You just can’t push people around like that at work and expect to get away with it.

All in all, I thought this was a fantastic episode.  Just about everything went sideways for everybody at Firehouse 51, and I suspect it’s setting the stage for a hell of a season finale in a few weeks.  Well, almost everything went sideways.  At least Molly’s seem to really be taking off, and so when the times rough and continue to go downhill, everyone will still have Molly’s and the bottom of a bottle.

 Most Memorable Quotes

•  Ahh, marry him! – Shay to Dawson (referring to Mills)
• Good job – Boden to Mills
• Let’s always keep the fighting clean & the sex dirty – Casey to Hallie
• Always remember that the squeakiest wheel always wins around here – Voight
• I don’t trust anyone in this world but you – Severide to Shay

Chicago Fire airs on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. EST on NBC